President's 2.6 million followers fooled into thinking they received personal messages

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WASHINGTON - JANUARY 29: U.S. President Barack Obama works on his Blackberry on his belt as he returns to the Oval Office at the White House January 29, 2009 in Washington, DC. Obama attended a class presentation at his daughters Sasha's school, Sidwell Friends School in Bethesda, Maryland. (Photo by Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images)

Still, the seeming realism of his tweets had people thinking Obama's fingers were at the keyboard. After he won the Nobel Peace Prize, for example, Obama's Twitter account issued a single-word reaction: "Humbled." It's just the kind of thing a real Twitter user might type.

So maybe this is a good time to ask: Is Obama like Twitter, a hot product which has leapt from early adopters to the mainstream? Or is he a technofad like Friendster, which grew huge and then got abandoned by the cognoscenti?